Well Worth the Wait
At this point in the internship, I have worked in many different facilities with various preceptors and I have loved getting to know all of their individual paths that led them to their careers as Registered Dietitians. However, one preceptor that I worked with for part of my foodservice rotation, in particular, really made an impact on me as an individual for the dedication and pride she exhibits for her career. She deserves to be commended for all of the great work she has done and will continue to do.
Tianna Dornan is the current Foodservice manager at Marian Extended Care in Santa Maria, California. However, while she loves her job now it was quite a path to get there. Tianna’s journey really exemplifies how one should never settle for something you are not passionate about and instead make every effort to pursue your highest aspirations in life.
Tianna in her Monday-Wednesday work personality.
Tianna did not start off her academic journey thinking nutrition was something she wanted to pursue or consider as a potential career choice. She started pursuing an undergraduate degree in gender studies and later decided on law school. After about one semester, she quickly realized this was not the path for her and decided to move on.
From here, she ended up teaching ballroom dancing and began to find interest in the food industry where she worked at a vegan fine dining restaurant in San Francisco where she displayed persistence at its finest – telling the chef she would work for free; to get her foot in the door. After this, she became a pastry chef and baker at an organic café, worked at a restaurant in Berkeley, and later started doing Vegan cancer prevention and survival cooking classes at UCSF.
It is at this point, where she really found the connection between food and nutrition. She continued to work in San Francisco, however, with the expense associated with living there, she was quickly having to choose between paying for gas and paying for food. This along with her newfound passion for food and nutrition hit a spark in her to go back to school, this time to pursue every class associated with getting a nutrition degree.
Tianna went back to school locally at Cuesta college to start taking some classes and later met with the Dean of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences at Cal Poly who connected her with her soon-to-be graduate advisor.
At that moment, she still did not know she wanted to become a dietitian, but she was confident that the career path for her would involve something with food and nutrition. It took her a total of 6 years to do her Master’s and DPD courses. During her courses, she began to love clinical nutrition for the same reason she developed a passion for baking, “it is all about the rules, the numbers, and an algorithm to follow.”
Tianna had worked so hard to get to this point in her life, and she decided that becoming an RD would give her the opportunity to go into clinical nutrition if she wanted to. She just did not want to close any doors for herself, but leave endless possibilities available for her future profession.
She applied to VA dietetic internships only and did not match the first time around. Still unsure of exactly what she wanted to do, she took a year to work and decided to take a risk and only apply to the Cal Poly internship as she knew she wanted to stay in the area.
Well, as the common saying goes, hard work pays off, and in Tianna’s case, after so many years of waiting and career path changes, she finally was matched and completed her dietetic internship at Cal Poly. She said, “most of my connections are through Dignity Health which I still work for,” affirming the importance of performing well and fostering a good network during the internship with your preceptors. She started working clinically for Dignity Health, and it was not long before she transitioned to foodservice management as she said “I find it difficult to say no to opportunities.”
Tianna in her Thursday-Friday mom personality.
Working in Clinical vs. Foodservice Management
Tianna mentioned liking different aspects of both clinical and foodservice as they are similar but present with their own challenges.
For clinical, she liked the patient interaction and the satisfaction she got from being able to make patient visits, chart on them, and check off her list for the day. However, what surprised her about clinical is how different it was in the real world compared to what you learn in school. “Real practice really challenges you to use clinical judgment, be flexible in your thinking, and bend the rules when you have to.”
Tianna said, “Clinical is more about managing yourself, your thoughts, and your time.”
However, when she stepped into the foodservice management role, this position came along with another set of rules, regulations, and guidelines.
In this position, it is far more about people and managing staff. In the end, the most important thing is being able to communicate her knowledge to her staff to make sure they understand everything efficiently. This, Tianna said, can be “tricky, hard, but also very rewarding.”
Advice to Current and Future Interns
Tianna would advise any current intern or prospective intern to not be afraid to ask for job opportunities. For all of her cooking jobs and graduate program, she is the one that took the initiative to get to where she wanted to be, even if that meant working for free for a period of time. In the end, Tianna says “that has made all the difference.” When she was scared or hesitant, she was also resolute. Persistence and desire are two key qualities that Tianna says are important to display to someone you potentially want to work for.
Tianna has been so successful in her profession and now enjoys being able to give back by being a preceptor for aspiring dietitians in the Cal Poly DI program, as not too long ago she was in our same shoes.
Tianna is a great example of how, with hard work and dedication, it is possible to change your career path. Even if it was later in her life than she would have liked, Tianna would not regret any of her experiences as they essentially led her to her dream job working as a dietitian that continues to provide her with constant joy each and every day.
Working with Tianna was such a rewarding experience for me. She is a great teacher and role model. Anyone that currently or has had the pleasure to work alongside Tianna knows how passionate she is about the dietetics profession. I hope that when I become a registered dietitian working in the field I can put the same level of passion and dedication behind what I choose to do.
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